Universities Weblog

(Source: Arcadia University)Listen up, college presidents. Are your enrollments low? Not getting the best students? Fund raising lagging? No problem. Just change your name to something more marketable, and things will improve. Trust me.

For proof, ask the folks at Arcadia University. Who? You know, the former Beaver College, famous for its study abroad programs and, oh yeah, a name synonymous with a slang term heard in junior high school gyms across the country. Evidently tired of being the butt of jokes, Beaver changed its name to Arcadia in 2001. "Arcadia University is a name fitting of the caliber of our students, alumni, faculty, staff and programs," says President Bette E. Landman on the college's website. "Our new name reflects our foundation and the kind of learning environment we aim to foster." Alrightythen.

But Arcadia isn't alone. Western Maryland College recently became McDaniel College. Trenton State College became the College of New Jersey. The University of Southern Colorado became Colorado State University at Pueblo. And the New School for Social Research became New School University before deciding to call itself, simply, the New School. One wonders how long an institution can call itself "new." Anyhow, consider this from the New York Times:

The New School is also surrendering to common usage, but there is more to its realignment of names. Mr. Kerrey, a former United States senator from Nebraska, said that when he became the university's president four years ago, the board told him to try to unify the university's disparate components. These include the Parsons School of Design, the Mannes College of Music, the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science and five other colleges.

And so the New School is also changing the components' names to include in each the words "The New School." Parsons, for example, will become Parsons The New School for Design and Mannes will be renamed Mannes College The New School for Music.

"The competition in higher education is forcing a lot of what appears to be more commercial activity," Mr. Kerrey said. "It sounds a little like it's a pizza business.

"It's not a pizza business, but we do think of our students as our most important customers. And if they are unclear about who we are, then we run the risk that we might lose potential students."He's right—it's not a pizza business. No one in the pizza business would contrive a name as silly as Mannes College The New School for Music. That's enough to give me acid reflux and push my application in another direction.

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